My best friend Starr Ann (hi, Starr Ann) doesn't take no-class stupidity lightly. Well, she doesn't exactly take it hard, either. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.
She was surfing around the Internet (under cloak of my passwords, of course) and all of a sudden we hear her, all the way out in the kitchen, laughing that one way you really don't want to hear Starr Ann laugh. Jodie looked at me. I looked at Lane. Lane shrugged her shoulders.
I said to Jodie, "Lane hasn't seen Starr Ann in this particular shade of sardonic before."
Now, we're working real hard, all the while trying to make it look like we aren't working at all, on getting Lane to get even halfway innerested in something, anything. So, naturally, she didn't take the bait.
Jodie pursed her lips (I love when she does that) and said, "Well, Miss Lane, get ready, because in oh, I'd say about 20 seconds," Jodie took a fake look at her watch, "Starr Ann should be coming through that door with a great big load of some kind of bullshit."
Lane nodded real neutral.
In about 20 seconds, Starr Ann came walking through the door, carrying a copy of that picture up there. She showed it to Lane first. "These people have the honor of being connected with one of the best-going horses to come along in our lifetime, and look how they've decided to try and cheapen him."
Lane took a dismissive glance and handed the photo to Jodie, who didn't hold back one bit. "Fuck a frickin' duck upside down and sideways!"
If you think I didn't rush across the room to see for myself, you're wrong.
Starr Ann's eyes darted over at Lane. Still nothing.
So Starr Ann got this real casual swing to her voice and it all of a sudden sounded a whole lot more Southern than usual. "Tell you what, Margo, I think you and me oughta buy us a racehorse. Name her Boob Job. See if Hooters wants to pay us the big bucks for lettin' 'em sponsor her."
"You're right! I can just hear the race call now. '...and as they near the wire, it's Boob Job by a nose, no wait, that's not a nose...'"
Jodie said, "Then after she wins, '...now entering the winner's circle is Boob Job, a 3-year old gray filly out of Silicone...'"
Starr Ann's turn. "...by the two time Grade II winning sire Owl Eyes..."
Ouch! We all groaned at that. Well, Jodie and I groaned.
But the really bad lines crack Starr Ann up more than the good ones do and she was ready to roll. "Reminds me of those Hoof Hearted videos on youtube."
I said, "Huh?"
Jodie said, "Huh?"
"You never saw those? You gotta pronounce 'Hoof' like 'roof' and say 'Hoof Hearted' real fast."
Jodie said it out loud that way and just about peed in her pants. "...and it's Hoof Hearted by a nose..."
Then the miracle occurred. Lane asked, "And I suppose you're going to tell me Hoof Hearted has a come-from-behind running style?"
I doubt any of us has ever in our lives been so happy to hear such a silly, juvenile joke.
Tomorrow, we put Lane on yet another airplane. This one will be taking her back to Walter Reed Army Hospital (you know, the one at the heart of the not-so-distant neglect scandals) where they will subject her to their Warriors In Transition program.
Starr Ann, Jodie, and I have every reason to hope that Lane's wonderful, resilient, youthful, hopeful, healthy mind will whisper something like '...Hoof Hearted coming on from the rear...' or '...gray filly by Silicone...' right when she most needs a chuckle.
And just for the record? They haven't invented a level of base corporate sponsorship low enough to take one bit of class away from the likes of this exquisite creature.
